Effective altruism and political power

Adam Zerner

I just saw that Donald Trump is running for president. Which led me to the following thought: would any of the big names in tech have a chance at being elected president of the US? Elon Musk? Sergey Brin? Jeff Bezos? Reid Hoffman? Peter Thiel? Edit: Bill Gates?

Some follow up questions/thoughts:

As far as maximizing altruistic impact goes, would it be a good idea for them to become president?
Do these people care about maximizing altruistic impact? To what extent? If so/enough, why not do it?
What other "sane" people have enough reputation in the public eye to have a chance at acquiring a lot of political power? My first thought was tech people, but I'm sure there are others. Big hedge fund managers? Ray Dalio? Or maybe some famous scientists?
What does EA have to say about acquiring political power?

Edit: hypothetically, if one of these big-name tech people were to try to gain political power, how should they go about doing so?

Some follow up questions/thoughts:

As far as maximizing altruistic impact goes, would it be a good idea for them to become president?
Do these people care about maximizing altruistic impact? To what extent? If so/enough, why not do it?
What other "sane" people have enough reputation in the public eye to have a chance at acquiring a lot of political power? My first thought was tech people, but I'm sure there are others. Big hedge fund managers? Ray Dalio? Or maybe some famous scientists?
What does EA have to say about acquiring political power?

Edit: hypothetically, if one of these big-name tech people were to try to gain political power, how should they go about doing so?

Such as should not be atheist - if not figurehead people would care more about culturally Christian / traditional / conservative VALUES than faith.

The point is that in the USA faith is (or at least was) a reasonable signal for values.

My answer will be that a hyper-masculine nationalist even when atheist will have 90% the same values.

Due to the cultural history of the USA hyper-masculine nationalist atheists with conservative values are rare. Currently the only place to find them is in certain corners of NRx.

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Effective altruism and political power

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Effective altruism and political power

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